Father Hyacinth
said that he had read in one ancient history that an angel guided a monk at
night around the cells of other monks, his fellows, while they slept, and one
of them had snakes under his habit, another one a sack of gold, etc.
"It
reminds me," said Monsignor Paul, of my friend priest, a distant friend to
be precise, who wore a shabby polyester jacket over his black shirt and wool
trousers, all year around.
"There
are many of them," said master Adalbert.
"Well,
but once an angel came to him, too," replied Monsignor Paul, on one evening,
right after a TV news show. He appeared near a fig plant and asked: "Why, are
you, mortal, constantly walking in this polyester jacket? Can’t you see that it
is ugly and creased? How do you praise the beauty of creation with this Chinese
product?"
"I
apologize to you, my angel," the priest says, "but I never talk to
strangers. My angel did not introduce himself to me. "
"You
will not learn my wonderful name before you put this cloth off," said the
angel.
"Does my
angel understand that I have a great hole on the underside of my cassock,
because I was walking through thistles and tore it apart?" - says the
priest.
"Repair
it yourself," the angel says, dignified.
"Why, I
cannot, I do not have time, I have to go confess now," the priest
now says. "And does my angel know how Saint John Vianney expressed himself
about angels? That even if two hundred appeared here one next to another in a
row, none of them would have the power to forgive sins the priest has. So it
seems to me right that you, my dear angel "- here the priest began to speak
rather condescendingly - "may agree to such a division of work, that you
repair this hole in my cassock, and I go to the confessional. "- And off he
went, and the angel sits there and sows a hole together with a golden thread he
has pulled out of his hair.
"You
came up with a beautiful story," said Master Adalbert. - Maybe I'll use it
for a sermon.
"But
what was his name, that angel’s, did he present himself finally?"
"Father Hyacinth wanted to know.
"Probably
he did, but I do not know this name, and I never get holes in my cassock, for
that matter," said Monsignor Paul impatiently and loosened his collar.